In Cask of Amontillado Poe was able to convey the feelings brought on by his characters’ surroundings, it also serves the purpose to illustrate the character’s intentions. The setting of a story is the key to establishing its overall mood. Within the story, Cask of Amontillado Poe used an unenlightened setting to do that. Poe’s intentions were to imply the sense of trepidation and danger that is present for the start of the story. Poe also invoked an emotional response, which reflected the society on how his characters in the story live, he urges that the underlying themes of the story be death, revenge, and deception.
Poe begins Cask of Amontillado with Montresor explaining how awful of a person Fortunato is, and declares that Fortunato must be punished. “I must not only punish but punish with impunity”(Poe 68 ). Then the carnival season is introduced in the following paragraphs and the tone has a drastic shift in tone from the previous paragraphs. Montresor goes from frantically plotting the revenge of Fortunato to pure bliss as he greets him. “I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand. I said to him “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day”(Poe 69 ).
Next, Montresor offers to share an outrageously expensive bottle of wine with Fortunato. It appears they were both the best of friends again which throws off Poe’s audience to think maybe Montresor had changed his mind. Poe’s audience then finds out how Montresor planned his revenge to be during the carnival season, so when Fortunato doesn’t show up the next day, everyone will assume he is hungover somewhere. “It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore a motley… He turned towards me and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication”(Poe 69 ).
127 our experts are availableright now
With it being carnival season it gave Montresor an easy way to put use of his household servants. “There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time”(Poe 70 ). Poe explained to them he should not return until the next morning and then proceeded to give explicit orders not to stir from the house. Montresor then gave Fortunato flambeaux that bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway which led into the vaults. ” I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors”(Poe 70 ). Although Poe does not describe many of the Catacomb rooms he does give a brief discussion to lead his audience to believe all the rooms are the same, therefore, bringing sobering fear with them.
Poe also explains how within the vaults was the last resting place of the dead of the Montresor family. “We were entering the last resting place of the dead of the Montresor family. Here too we kept our finest wines, here in the cool, dark, still air under the ground”(Poe 70 ). Poe then explained how when they went into the crypts the air inside was thick and oppressive, with the stench of decay and mold. Poe stated, “… caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame”(70 ).
They had chains to the affixed to the walls and human skeletons piled beside the entrance. “Against three of the walls there were piles of bones higher than our heads. From the fourth wall someone had pulled down all the bones, and they were spread all around us on the ground”(Poe 71). Here, Montresor lures drunken Fortunato into the room with the promise of Amontillado. Only to chain him up and leave him to die. Poe mentions noises Fortunato made, and noises are an important part of conducting the setting. Noise is able to abduct its audience, luring them into the story and letting them experience the same feelings as Fortunato.
With all this being said, the setting in Cask of Amontillado impacts the mood of the story because of the effect it has on the audience’s imagination and nerves, not knowing what to expect. The audience is being taken on a trip through a place that resembles the underworld. Montresor is able to lure Fortunato underground and, and Poe is able to lure his audience underground. By describing the actual horror of the setting, Poe makes the reader experience the horror that must have been felt by Fortunato when he found himself trapped down there and realized that he was going to be left to die there.
